Madras High Court orders notices to five IAS officers and a Joint Commissioner of HR&CE dept. in contempt plea-OxBig News Network

The Madras High Court on Tuesday (June 24, 2025) ordered notices to as many as five IAS officers and a Joint Commissioner of the Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowments (HR&CE) department of Tamil Nadu, in a contempt of court petition, after observing that a prima facie case of contempt had been made out against them.

First Division Bench of Chief Justice K.R. Shriram and Justice Sunder Mohan passed the orders on the contempt plea moved by S. Vinoth Raghavendran, the State secretary of Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) spiritual and temple development wing. The Bench decided to hear the matter next on July 10.

The contempt plea had been filed against alleged disobdience of orders passed by the first Bench comprising the Chief Justice and Justice J. Sathya Narayana Prasad (since dead) on April 18, 2024, in a writ petition alleging encroachment of properties belonging to Devanathaswamy Temple in Cuddalore district.

Then, the present contempt petitioner (also the writ petitioner) had accused St. Joseph’s Matriculation Higher Secondary School to be in occupation of the temple land. He stated that two survey numbers of the land on which the school was located actually belonged to the temple.

During the hearing of the writ plea, the HR&CE department submitted that the school too had filed a writ petition in 2009 and obtained an order from a single judge in 2019 to allot an alternative land, measuring not less than 4.5 acres, either at Bhuvanagiri village or any other place with easy access to the main road.

The department’s counsel said, the proposal with respect to allotting alternative land to the school was pending with the State government. Wondering why the government was sitting on the proposal for over five years, the Division Bench had directed the government to identify the alternative land within six months.

As far as encroachment of other lands belonging to the temple was concerned, the judges disposed of the writ plea in April 2024 after recording the submission of the HR&CE counsel that a survey would be conducted within three months and necessary action would be taken if any encroachments were identified.

It was alleging disobedience of this order passed in the writ petition last year that the petitioner had now filed a contempt plea against IAS officers P. Amudha, S. Madhumathi, B. Chandramohan, P.N. Sridhar, and Sibi Adhithya Senthilkumar who had served as Revenue Secretary, School Education Secretary, HR&CE Secretary, HR&CE Commissioner, and Cuddalore Collector at the relevant point of time.